Post by thread:Help wanted in electronic

Hi, I recently discovered the PIC as I was looking for small circuits to control loc omotives on a model railroad. I know some manufacturers have already made those controlle rs but 1) I think they don't have all the features I need in order to control my railroad and 2) I thought it would be fun to try to do my own system. I read throught the datasheets and even bought a book about the PIC and I think I've come to the point where I understand weel enough how to program the PIC (I already pl ayed with Z80 and 68xxx in the past so I'm not a real newbie in assembler). I even bought a PICSTART+ and wrote/simulate little programs in MPLAB4. I put together a small circuit with a 16F84 on a protoboard to lite LEDs or 7 se g. displays and it worked fine. Here comes the hard part : I don't know much about electronic and I've come to a point where I have my project on the paper and some code already written (especially t he network part) and I need to start to test the "real thing". To give you an example of own dum I am when it comes to electronic I haven't bee n able to make the decoupling cap to work and I blow an entire circuit when I tried to hoo k up a DC motor, a H-Bridge and the PIC ! So, anyway, I'm looking for someone who could either make the project with me or at least help me on the key topics. In fact I think it would be great if I can find someo ne in my neighborhood to really work with. Here are some of the topics the project covers : -Controling a DC motor with PWM -Networking PICs together via the railroad power rails (2 rails system) -Providing power to the locomotive throught the railroad power rails (2 rails sy stem) I was thinking of the 16F84 to start with but I think I'll have to switch to a 1 6F876 as it will handle the hardware better and provide more code space (8K). I'm living in LA right now but will be moving to SF by June. I will give more de tails and my address to anyone interested enough. Also, I don't intend to spend too much money on this (only for the parts and may be some little manufacturing, basicaly) so I'm not gonna hire a freelance or a company f or this : THIS IS HOBBY ONLY, NO COMMERCIAL NEED. As a counterpart I can help people writi ng programs for the PIC, or any other language/platform. Thanks, -Christian _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com